Lynsey Addario’s first published collection of
photographs, Of Love & War, is a reflection on a
career that’s spanned more than two decades
and has produced images of life under the
Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan, war-torn
Iraq and Libya, refugees around the world and
conflict in the Congo and South Sudan.

Far more than words, the visual description of war and
humanitarian crises offered through Addario’s lens illuminates the
reality of violence for people far away and unaffected by conflict.

It’s possible that some of the images will leave readers at a loss for
words, from photographs of women who have attempted suicide by
self-immolation to escape abusive husbands in Kabul, Afghanistan,
to an image of a U.S. soldier carrying the body of his best friend who
has just been killed in an ambush.

Forced to process this reality, Addario says in the introduction
that writing helped her cope with the things she was witnessing. Her
words—in the form of personal journal entries, email and letters—
usher readers through the difficult subject matter that’s included
on some of the pages. But to call Addario’s book an exposé on the
atrocities of war zones would
miss the point. Her book speaks
of war, but it also speaks of love.

Even in the midst of war, people
fall in love, laugh and dance.

PDNedu also profiled Addario
after the 2015 release of her
best-selling memoir, It’s What I
Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love
and War. “The stories that are
not on the front line mean so
much to me,” Addario told usin